Moving Metal

Gimbel soon identified a potential right hand man— Drake Vice President Robert L. Zurbach. Born in 1917, Zurbach had served with the Office of Price Administration during the early years of World War II, helping to establish the price schedule for scrap iron and steel before going into uniform. In 1946, he founded Zurbach Steel Company of California, which merged with Drake in 1959. Gimbel was impressed with Zurbach’s energy and marketing ability, which helped him decide that the Drake acquisition would indeed be a good fit. He formally proposed the purchase on May 21, 1963, thereby establishing another precedent of obtain- ing through acquisition industry veterans to strengthen Reliance management. In his pitch to the Board, Gimbel wrote, “We have built a solid basic operation with good and improving facilities, a tight, efficient, but thin organization and a very fine financial position with a good base for credit.” He noted, however, that despite steady profits, Reliance’s “selective selling program has not led to a significant increase in Los Angeles sales volume.” The company needed more local custom- ers and Gimbel believed that acquiring Drake would bring them in. Gimbel also touted Drake’s management, noting that acquiring the company would “enable us to make a big move toward becoming organizationally sound.” The Directors approved the acquisition and Reliance bought Drake on July 15, 1963, for $2 million. Drake’s Los Angeles shop was transferred to the 20,000 square feet of floor space at Vernon—the space that was newly available thanks to the Triax storage system—while the San Diego and Fresno warehouses were kept open as service centers in the expanded sales territories. Most notably, Reliance had nearly doubled in size with $20,000,000 in annual sales and

Luther Stringfellow was hired on at Reliance in 1950 as Sales Manager. Just over ten years later he became Vice President of Public Relations.

Manager Henry F. “Hank” Thomas became Vice President in charge of merchandising in Los Angeles, while former Sales Manager Luther Stringfellow became Vice President of Public Relations. A Gimbel associate named Marion “Mal” Troster filled the vacant seat on the Board of Directors. Still, Gimbel had no designated successor. He therefore paid particular attention to Drake’s leadership during his appraisal of the company, with a view toward further building up Reliance’s own management team.

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